The Green Green Grass

For those who have BBC Three , they will be surprised to see Simon Day's "Grass" being well and truly ripped off by John Sullivan in this Only Fools and Horses spin off . In "Grass" Simon Day's character Billy Bleach "grassed" on a local London gangster and through the witness protection act was relocated to the sticks of Norfolk. The underrated six part comedy tackled the ideas of country meets city and a fish being out of a water. Replace Billy Bleach with Boycie and add Marlene and son Tyler and you have the plot for the "Green Green Grass" staring you in the face . The basic idea of the show is taking Sullivan's well loved east end (of London) humour from Only Fools And Horses and setting it in a completely different background , the opportunities for humour being how will a cockney con man interact with manure kicking yokels instead of the likes of his own ? Coming on BBC 1 on a Friday at 830 vastly limits and waters down the potential for border line humour and leaves the audience with the sort of harmless weak humour that has done "My Family" and "My Hero" no favours and also being an Only Fools And Horses spin off within the early moments the jokes feel very tired because we've had twenty years of it in Sullivan's first sit-com , for instance there is a scene at the beginning where Boycie finds that his satellite navigation system is not up to scratch and guess who sold it to him ?? This joke sets the tone for tired Only...jokes to be repeated again and again , I can imagine Boycie meeting country high society types in the next few episodes and making "hilarious" faux pas , which could be funny if Del Boy hadn't of done it for two decades of Only... . This show will ultimately fail because of the writer and because it is on 8.30 on BBC 1 , devoid and humour and ideas , the strings in your heart it will try to tug are better served by watching old episodes of Only on DVD.

I haven't felt so ashamed to be English since last Wednesday when Northern Ireland beat us at football. This show is AWFUL. I thought it would be bad but even my very worst expectations were surpassed, and then some. John Sullivan wrote the utterly brilliant Only Fools & Horses which - for more than 2 decades - was Britain's best loved sitcom and then he comes up with this trash. Boycie & Marlene, 2 of the characters from OF&H leave Peckham for a new life in the country and to avoid the infamous Driscoll brothers. Boycie's evidence "sent them down" but now they're out on a technicality and looking for revenge, apparently. I only hope they find the Boyce family, AND SOON. John Challis & Sue Holderness were both hilarious in the fabulous show which made them famous but this pathetic drivel doesn't even get off the starting blocks. They both seem to be struggling to remember their Boycie & Marlene characters and their son "Tyler" is played by a young actor who has about as much charisma as a whelk, and he looks like one too. There's no "soul" to this horrible show and it simply isn't funny. The only time I've even "smiled" so far has been when Boycie makes references to his mates the Trotters and that by the way is incredibly cheap of Mr Sullivan. Only Fools & Horses was SO successful because the audience didn't just care about Del & Rodney & Uncle Albert, we LOVED them and you just can't have Boycie & Marleen WITHOUT "the trotters" and their Reliant 3-wheeler. I'm prepared to bet anyone out there £100 that this show does not complete it's first series and then vanishes without trace. It should never have been made. 1 out of 10.

After the final three episodes of Only Fools And Horses when it was revived in 2001 gained a less than positive response from the press it was a surprise to see that the show's very talented writer John Sullivan had this spin off featuring much loved characters Boycie and Marlene up his sleeve.

It ends up being a nice surprise. While it was never going to match Only Fools it never really tries to and instead it becomes its own beast. The premise works, the new characters introduced are all very funny and happily the relationship between Boycie and Marlene gets fleshed out far more than would have been possible in Only Fools.

The best episodes are the ones penned by Sullivan and it was only when other writers started to contribute that the standard of the show dipped a little. However there are certainly more good episodes than average ones and this show is good fun throughout all four of it's series'.

This show works great as a spin off but it's not as good as Only Fools And Horses to be fair though nobody said it would be and I never expected it to be either. The dry wit is still there and it's very amusing when it comes up with the right dialogue. There's been times I've thought this just isn't working but then there's been other times where I've really laughed at what the characters have been saying. On the whole I'm glad that this spin off series was made as it's been great to see the characters involved again. Only the beeb could make a spin off to such an iconic program work and this is what they have done here. Looking forward to the Christmas special and then hopefully a new series in the new year.

This series has a great feel to it. Of course it cannot be compared to Only Fools, nothing can. But it's great to see how Sullivan developed these characters. Makes me wish he'd done it with others, too. A great series to have on in the house.